With Friends Like These
by Polly Gator
Summary: The residents of Nerima aren't always fighting. A series of ficlets about the Ranmaverse's mostly unexplored interactions. RanmaAkane.
1. Akane and Shampoo: Tea

**Big epic author's notes: **My boyfriend suggested that I do a series that explored all the untouched _non-romantic_ relationships in the show, of which there are a lot, such as the Ryoga/Mousse dynamic, or how Akane and Mr. Saotome get along, or what Kasumi and Ukyo might talk about if they ever found the time to. Things like that. I find these interactions interesting and very sorely overlooked, so here I am! I thought I'd do something about it. Huzzah! Perhaps towards the end though, I'll write ficlets for the more popular relationships like Ryoga/Ukyo, Ranma/Akane and the like, but we'll see. Also, I don't know if anything like this has been done before - it probably has - but in that case, forgive me for doing it again :P

Oh, be warned though, I rather staunchly support Ranma/Akane so if there will be any sort of romantic inclinations, it will probably be in _that_ direction. :P

I wanted them to be short; I was going to self-impose a bunch of one-hour ficlet challenges but I guess that'll depend on who we'd be dealing with. Since this is the first installment, and the Shampoo/Akane friendship is something I've always wanted to explore, I spent a little more time on this one. Like... about three hours :P Expect the next ones to be way shorter though.

So we'll begin here, with the Shampoo/Akane FRIENDSHIP. Didn't think it was possible, did you?

-

When Shampoo had got up out of bed this morning, it definitely, _definitely_ did not even seem like a remote possibility that she would be sitting where she was sitting now: out here, on the ledge of the tallest building in Nerima, with Akane Tendo. And if someone had told her that morning that she would be talking to the girl, laughing, and meaning it? She would have sic'd her bonbori on them and told them to tell it to the Pacific ocean.

And yet, here she was.

_This... this is fun!_ Shampoo thought with a small smile, rewrapping a scarf securely around her neck. _I can't remember the last time I did anything for fun._

It had all started bright and early this morning, while she wiped the tabletops at the Nekohanten, getting ready for a day of business. Her great-grandmother had approached her with a gleam in her eye that screamed "Plan!", and a decisive tap in her walking stick.

"Shampoo, that's enough," the old crone had intoned sagely. "I am giving you the day off."

"Day off?" Shampoo asked, confused. "Great-grandmother, I don't need the day off. I'm perfectly fine. I can work no problem."

The old lady raised an eyebrow at her. "You have not stopped working for three weeks straight, ever since son-in-law's wedding went to pieces after you got back from Jusendo. You have not left this restaurant to do anything other than use the bath house. You're unalert, your face is troubled and your ki is off-center. You have been completely ignoring Mousse's advances as opposed to when you used to turn on him, you have not been yourself! Child, you are working yourself to death!"

The young girl clasped her hands in front of her, and hung her head numbly. Great-grandmother would never understand that with Ranma under house arrest and still acting kind of mad at her for wrecking his wedding (though it was probably mostly because of the things she had said about Akane... or about the Tendo family? She wasn't completely sure) there wasn't much _to do_ in Nerima at all. Not much reason to go outside. Not much reason to reject Mousse if Ranma wasn't looking. She was simply... _bored_. With her self, with this life, with the people she knew.

Tokyo was such a crowded city, with not much to do if you were a Chinese Amazon out by your lonesome. Taking someone out was definitely out of the question, since the only person she really could fathom going out with was Ranma. And she wasn't too sure where Ranma stood right now in the vast fission dividing the people that didn't give a damn about her or hated her guts, but she'd be willing to bet it was closer to the first category. She was still trying to wait out his fury.

"Shampoo?"

The girl sighed. "I don't know what to say, Great-grandmother."

Some bills and a coat were shoved into her hands. "Then don't say anything. Take the day off. Take son-in-law out on a date. You haven't really talked since his wedding. Go get yourself a nice new pair of earrings. Go do something that isn't standing around this restaurant, moving like a zombie and scaring our customers!"

Her grip tightened decisively.

"Don't let Mousse follow me."

-

So Shampoo had left. She had taken the money, the coat, her zombie act and left. At first she wandered the chilled streets a bit aimlessly, taking her time to look up at the buildings that scraped the sky and at the streets that seemed to move like rivers of people: walking, walking, walking. She had never really lived in a city before, having come from a tribe of angry women in rural China, and though she found it a bit like a large concrete prison at first, she decided then that it wasn't so bad to be able to live amongst people who didn't really know you. It gave her a fleeting sense of independence for the first time in her life; like she could do what she wanted and nobody would care enough to judge her or tell her just what they thought of her actions. She kind of liked it.

After a couple of hours of directionless walking, she decided her feet were tired, and headed towards a small Chinese tea shop that sat sat smack dab in the middle of the ward. She chatted pleasantly with the Chinese owner for a little while: about the lovely fall and how things were going back home (despite having come from opposite ends of the country). Mrs. Satou had lived in Japan for almost 18 years. She had two children and was married to a wonderful Japanese man. Shampoo commented slyly that she too would love to go down that same path, and they both exchanged laughs over it. It was a comfortable twenty minutes.

Until, of course, the bells over the door jangled brightly, and Akane Tendo walked in.

Despite the warmth of her tea and the company, Shampoo froze.

"Akane Tendo!" Mrs. Satou sprung to her feet, nearly knocking over Shampoo's table. "What on earth brings you here?"

_What on earth indeed?! _Shampoo thought harshly, thinking quickly and dipping her head down. Hopefully her long hair would obscure her face. _Shit luck! I don't need this right now!_

"Good morning Mrs. Satou," she heard the other girl reply. "How are you doing today?"

"Wonderful, wonderful, Akane-chan," the older woman responded. "But like I said, what brings you here? Shouldn't you be on a honeymoon right now or something?"

That caught Shampoo's attention. She looked up to see Akane rolling her eyes and putting her hands on her hips.

"Well, that's what I'm here about Mrs. Satou," Akane said, smirking. She held out a small envelope. "I'm here to return your (ahem) generous... wedding donation. There were some things that got in the way and it just... it just didn't work out. So I am returning this to you. Don't think that it wasn't appreciated because it was! It's just... like I said, it didn't work out..."

"What a shame!" Mrs. Satou exclaimed, hand to her chest. "What on earth happened?"

"It's a long story."

"I have all day, Akane-chan."

Akane smiled tightly. "I wouldn't burden you with it."

Shampoo could not resist. "Burden us with it, please," she spoke up cheekily. "I want hear story very much."

_If her eye brows shot up any higher, _Shampoo thought, stirring her tea, _they'd reach Mars or something._

"Oh!" Mrs. Satou chuffed airily, pushing Akane towards the table at the end of the room where Shampoo sat, with her catlike smirk. "Where _are_ my manners. Shampoo, this is a very good friend of the family's, Akane Tendo. Akane-chan, this is Shampoo. She's from back home too, as I'm sure you can tell from her accent," she laughed. "You two are about the same age! I'm sure you'll get along! Oh, drat, customers, you girls stay here I have to get back to work. Akane-chan, thank you for returning this and I'm so very sorry to hear about your wedding. Perhaps next time!"

And so the two of them were left alone in a very, very, _very_ pregnant silence.

Akane looked down at her boot-covered toes.

Shampoo looked towards the other end of the room.

Neither of them said anything for quite some time.

It was Akane, though, who broke the silence, by plopping down (uninvited) on to the seat across from Shampoo. Their eyes met, both gleaming with a modicum of distrust, but not with the acidic sting of any kind of malice. Just a wide-awake wariness, as if unsure of the other's true disposition.

"So..." Akane said, in a voice approaching conversational. "What are you doing here today?"

"I drink tea," Shampoo replied in the same tone of voice. "Is my day off."

"I see."

"And you?"

Akane shrugged. "Returning all the wedding stuff. Like the money and toasters and things. It's not like... " she paused, then sighed. "Anyway, that was the last of it. Mrs. Satou's, I mean."

"Ahh."

And silence.

Akane's fingers drummed restlessly on the table. She moved to leave. "Anyway I should go. Hope you have a nice day off."

An impulse pecked at Shampoo there, and for some reason, she gave in. Maybe it was the way that Akane carried herself today - as if she was just so _tired_ of _everything _- that made Shampoo feel a small pity towards the girl. Maybe it was the tea. Or maybe she had seen something in the girl's eyes that reflected her own, an unexplored kinship that maybe, just maybe, would bring her out of her self-imposed gloom. Whatever it was, Shampoo wasn't really too eager to put a name to it, so for the time being she simply reached for the girl's hand as she moved to stand and said in a small voice:

"I could use company."

-

And that's how Akane and Shampoo ended up spending the day together. They talked over tea of neutral topics - such as the weather, the state of affairs in local governance, and things on television that should never be on television. They left the tea shop and went window-shopping. They bought hot pork buns and puttered aimlessly around the park. They talked about martial arts, fending off numerous suitors and how men were the scum of the universe. It turns out it was a common link - pesky streaks of feminism borne of their mutual unpleasant encounters with the opposite sex ran wildly through both of their personalities and they found that it was something tangible; something that only the two of them could comprehend. They both smiled a little bit more after that revelation.

Akane talked a bit about her life in Nerima, and Shampoo asked her about what highschool was like. Shampoo talked a bit about the customs of her tribe, and Akane asked her what it was like to turn into a cat.

They did not talk about Ranma.

-

Shampoo headed home that evening for dinner, with a small secret smile on her face and a fuzzy feeling of contentment settling in her belly. Cologne commented (with a hint of I-told-you-so in her voice) that Shampoo looked _much_ better after that day off and that if she wanted to take another day off tomorrow it would be perfectly all right. Mousse sat in the corner of the restaurant, looking patently exhausted. Apparently, it did not occur to great-grandmother to hire any extra hands to help cover her shift. Shampoo's heart twinged slightly at the sight of the crumpled-looking martial artist.

_Poor Ducky_, she thought affectionately. _All though... if he comes near me I'd still pound him into the ground_.

"Whose scarf is that?" Cologne's voice suddenly broke through Shampoo's thoughts. "Who were you with today?"

"Ah," she said, fingering the material and mentally slapping herself for forgetting to return it. "Akane Tendo. I bumped into her at the Tea House. I felt cold on the roof and she lent it to me. I'll go return it to her now." and she bounded out the door.

Cologne smiled thoughtfully. "Akane Tendo. Hmm."

-

Shampoo knocked nervously at the gate of the Tendo Dojo. This was not somewhere she wanted to be right now, and the thought of Ranma possibly answering the door made her blood run cold. It was too soon to see him, he was most definitely still mad, he would _not_ be happy to see her and he would be mean and awful and Akane would be mad and then there would be fighting and all the peace she had managed to extract from today would be _gone_ and...

She sighed.

_What a waste._

The gate opened a half inch.

"Yes?" a voice came.

"Is Shampoo," she said in a small voice. "I come to see Akane Tendo?"

The gate opened wider, revealing a curious-looking Kasumi Tendo. She blinked at Shampoo slowly. "Akane, did you say?" she asked, pulling the gate completely open and gesturing for the other girl to enter. "Please, come in."

Shampoo waved her hands in front of her, refusing. "Is okay," she said quickly. "Just come to return scarf. She dro... she lend to me and I forget to return. Here," she held the scarf out to Kasumi and bowed slightly. "Please tell her I send deep gratitude."

"Tell me yourself," another voice came. Shampoo looked up and smiled.

"You again, Shampoo?"

"_Ni hao,_ Akane. I still have your scarf."

Akane stepped towards her and took the scarf, grinning. "You didn't have to come all the way back here to return it. Thank you."

Shampoo nodded. "Is welcome. I go home now. Thank you for today, I have nice time. _Hui tou jian_, till we next meet."

"You don't want to stay for tea or something?" Akane asked hopefully.

The young Amazon shook her head dismissively, and looked Akane in the eye. "Is okay. Maybe not today. Next time."

Akane nodded solemnly, understanding. She offered the girl a small smile.

"The door is always open."

-

Giddy at having avoided the confrontation with Ranma that she had so feared, Shampoo did a small victory fist pump once the dojo's gates were shut. _That Akane Tendo can be a real doll when Ranma is not concerned,_ she thought fleetingly, images of mallets and flattened skulls dancing in her brain. _It is a shame that side of her is so often clouded_.

"You were with WHO today?!" a familiar voice rang out, up and over the Tendo home's walls and into Shampoo's startled ears. She clutched at her chest in surprise, and her heart started pounding as the speaker's identity solidified. _Ranma!_ And two other disheartening thoughts: 1) he wasn't talking to her but to someone within the bounds of the Tendo property, and 2) he was _mad_.

"The reason I didn't tell you was because I knew you'd freak out okay!" That was Akane. Curious, Shampoo pressed her back against the wall and perked her ears. _It is not eavesdropping if the entire of Nerima can hear them anyway_. "You're proving me right, you're freaking out now!"

"I'M NOT FREAKING OUT!" Ranma bellowed, sounding a little too shrill for a guy. Spending too much time as a girl perhaps, Shampoo rolled her eyes. "It's _Shampoo!_ She could have tried to kill you, you know that!"

That stung.

"HEY." Akane's voice was louder now, and sterner. "You weren't _there_, okay? Have you ever actually spent time with the girl? Have you ever actually tried to get to know her without all the.. all the flying hair and the bonboris and the crazy fiancee things straightjacketing your judgment? She is _nice_, Ranma!"

"Nice?!" his voice was even shriller than before. "You call sprinkling bombs up and down our wedding _nice? _If you heard what she said about you, _believe me_, 'nice' will be the last thing you call her!_"_

"Would you just FORGET about that already!?" she heard something smash. "It's OVER, RANMA! It's been done! Can't you move past it?!"

And silence.

Shampoo was unsure of what to do. Was that the end of the conversation? Could she leave now, and contemplate what she had heard later in the comfort of her own room? Were the two of them now behind that wall, kissing passionately beneath the shadows cast by their little dojo lightbulbs?

_No way_, Shampoo shook her head of the thought. _Not on my watch, anyway, scarf or no scarf._

"I just..." Ranma's voice filtered up again, this time timid. Unsure. "I'm just worried okay?"

"I know," Akane said, softly this time that Shampoo could barely discern the words. "But Shampoo is... I've been around her, okay? We talked all day. She's different when things have absolutely nothing to do with you. She's a good person."

"She's a good actress."

"She wasn't acting."

"How do you know that?"

"I just do."

Shampoo could _feel_ her face turning beet red, and the voices tuned themselves out. It was so rare for anyone to defend her like Akane was doing right now - so certain of her intentions and pure in her aim. Shame - pure, unadulterated shame coursed through her at the things she had said about the girl (to her own fiancee! Sure he was her fiancee too but... still), those mean unwarranted things and the things she had called her behind her back and the things she had said about her to Mousse and to great-grandmother and to Lingling and Lunglung in those letters and she was about read to die from embarrassment at having been such a thoughtless fool. _Oh I am sorry, Akane_, Shampoo hung her head miserably, and twisted the hem of her jacket. _I am sorry._

Soon, the voices wound their way back into her ears.

"Well I don't know why you won't just go do it," That was Akane, sounding a lot more cheerful, gently teasing. "I mean, she really is a nice girl, and cute to boot. _I _would date her."

An indignant huff. Ranma. "Well of course _you_ would date her," he bit back, teasing too. "You're the world's biggest freaking _tomboy_."

Another smash resounded, then the unmistakable sound of Ranma's feet clambering up the stairs, Akane hot on his tail. "You'll never catch meeee, stupid!"

Shampoo decided then that it was time to leave.

"Thank you, Akane," she whispered quietly as she disappeared into the night. "I'll make it up to you somehow."

-

See, that wasn't so bad!


	2. Ryouga and Mousse: Lost

Ryouga and Mousse get the treatment! One hour ficlet. Ho-hum.

-

Ryouga and Mousse were lost.

"Do you see it?" one of them said agitatedly, craning his neck but seeing nothing. "I know they set up camp a couple of meters down from this pile of rocks that looked like an elephant."

"A pile of rocks that looked like an elephant or an elephant that looked like a pile of rocks?" the other said tiredly. "We can never tell with you you know."

"Oh shut up, Mister 'Let's-use-a-map-of-Switzerland-when-we're-lost-in-the-endless-forests-of-JAPAN'."

"We aren't lost, Quacky!"

"DON'T CALL ME QUACKY!"

-

Ryouga and Mousse were still lost.

They sat side by side on a small clearing, trying to ignore each other but unable to leave the other alone.

"Okay," one of them began tensely, after some moments of hostile silence. "We're on a patch of grass about six feet by six feet, and there's an anthill to our left. Does that help?"

His companion nodded slowly, without looking at him. (Presumably because he couldn't see him) "We go left from here. It'll lead us to the tree shaped like a stork and then there's a path leading down to the elephant rocks."

"All right."

Silence.

They both stood.

"Which way is left?"

-

Ryouga and Mousse tried very hard not to be lost, but it just could not be helped.

"Are you SURE we headed west of the mountain?" one of them asked for about the 50th time. "Because there's a whole lot of purple and I don't remember anything having passed anything purple."

"That's the sky," the other replied. "The sun is setting. We may need to set up camp."

"But we haven't found them yet!"

"You don't think I know that?"

A frustrated groan came from the boy with the long hair, who fingered his glasses atop his head. "All my stuff is back at camp. I can't believe I followed you out here!"

The boy with the bandana slammed down his backpack and faced his companion squarely. "Why DID you follow me out here anyway?! I didn't ask you to, you dumb duck! You just showed up out of _nowhere_ and now you're doing a heck of a lot of whining! It's getting on my nerves!"

"I followed you because I was asked to!" Mousse blurted out defensively. "They were worried you wouldn't make it back so I volunteered to keep you in line!"

Ryouga stared. "You volunteered?"

Mousse tucked his hands into his sleeves. "Nothing better to do at camp..." he mumbled.

"Shampoo put you up to it?"

"I think she wanted me out of the way."

Ryouga bit his lip. _God, I know the feeling_.

"I didn't expect your sense of direction to be this _bad,_ though," Mousse continued, pulling his glasses over his face again and taking a look around. "It feels a lot warmer here and I think I can hear the ocean."

-

Ryouga and Mousse sat side by side on a plateau facing the ocean and a slowly setting sun, and tried hard not to think about being lost.

-

"We were _walking _for six hours, and somehow we end up on a beach in Thailand." one of them says, shaking his head in amazement. "How do you do it?"

"It's a gift," says the other, pulling his arm back and pitching a bit of rock into the ocean. It glittered slightly in the setting sun before dropping soundlessly into the water. "I can never get where I want to go but... I find places I never knew I wanted to see."

"Good deal," comes the reply, with an accompanying push of his glasses up his nose. "I had no idea I wanted to see this either."

-

END

The best I could do in an hour! Sigh. Self-imposed writing exercises are so mean. (Additionally: suspension of disbelief, PLEASE! These boys turn into animals, surely they could suddenly be whisked away across an ocean.)


End file.
